Summary of countries that have banned asbestos

As at September 2025, 72 countries have imposed national bans on chrysotile asbestos mining, importation, production and use across the world.

The International Ban Asbestos Secretariat has compiled this list of ban countries and the chronology of when these bans were introduced since 1972 when Denmark became the first country to impose limited bans on the use of asbestos for thermal and noise insulation.

Listed below are the ban countries listed in WHO regional clusters:

Africa Americas South-East Asia Europe Eastern Mediterranean Western Pacific
Algeria Argentina Austria Bahrain Australia
Gabon Brazil Belgium Djibouti Brunei
Ivory Coast Canada Bulgaria Egypt Japan
Mauritius Chile Croatia Iran Korea (South)
Mozambique Colombia Cyprus Iraq New Caledonia
Seychelles Honduras Czech Republic Jordan New Zealand
South Africa United States Denmark Kuwait
Uruguay Estonia Oman
Finland Qatar
France Saudi Arabia
Germany
Gibraltar
Greece
Greenland
Hungary
Iceland
Israel
Italy
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
North Macedonia
Malta
Monaco
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Tűrkiye
United Kingdom
Ukraine

* Taiwan list as ban country but not list as WHO country

As this table shows, there are no countries in the South-East Asia region that have introduced a national ban on asbestos production and use. This region includes India as the largest consuming country in the world and other significant users like Thailand and Sri Lanka.

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